Gardening tips from Graham Renison

Graham Renison, who lives at Church Court retirement housing scheme in Cleethorpes and was the winner of Anchor's national Green Fingered Customer Award in 2015, knows a thing or two about growing a healthy garden.

We asked Graham to share his top gardening tips with us to help other green-fingered Anchor customers get into the spirit of the competition, and here’s what he had to say.

Top gardening tips

• If your seeds are out of a packet make sure you follow the planting instructions given on the packet, this makes all the difference
• Take cuttings from flowers and gather seeds at the end of the season. This helps save money and will make sure every year you have an abundance of colour and plants in the garden 
• Local markets are a great place to purchase good quality and well-priced bedding plants; it’s often much cheaper than the garden centre
• Contact your local council as they often sell garden compost and some even have a small garden centre with reduced price plants
• Bulbs are really easy to plant and make a wonderful display. They will generally multiply so your display gets better every year. Daffodils and snowdrops are real favourites for a bit of early springtime colour
• Use annual plants to cut down costs of replacing every year
• Try recycling your vegetable peelings in a compost bin, it makes rich compost for free 
• Purchase a water butt to save on watering costs during the summer months
• If you have a greenhouse you can grow plenty of plants from seed; at Church Court we applied for funding from Anchor’s legacy fund [link - www.anchor.org.uk/anchor-and-you/legacy-fund] to purchase ours
• Raised flower beds are really good, they reduce the time you need to spend bending down and allow other at the location people to get involved. 

Most importantly, be sure to enjoy your gardening!

Graham Renison lives at Anchor's Church Court retirement housing scheme in Cleethorpes